boro/nodejs repository overview

⁠Introduction

This is a Dockerfile to build a container image for nodeJS, with the ability to push and pull source code to and from git.

⁠Git repository

The source files for this project can be found here: https://github.com/TheBoroer/docker-nodejs⁠

If you have any improvements please submit a pull request.

⁠Docker hub repository

The Docker hub build can be found here: https://hub.docker.com/u/boro/nodejs/⁠

⁠Versions

Available Node.js version tags include:

• 14
• 16
• 18
• 20
• 22
• 24

Alpine versions are automatically selected based on the Node.js version (uses the latest compatible Alpine Linux version for each Node.js release).

⁠Building from source

To build from source you need to clone the git repo and run docker build:

git clone https://github.com/TheBoroer/docker-nodejs.git
cd docker-nodejs
docker build -t nodejs:node-18 .

⁠Building with custom Node.js version

You can build the image with a specific Node.js version using the NODE_VERSION build argument:

docker build --build-arg NODE_VERSION=20 -t nodejs:node-20 .

The build argument automatically uses the Alpine Linux base image (e.g., NODE_VERSION=20 becomes node:20-alpine).

⁠Continuous Integration

This project uses Drone CI to automatically build Docker images for multiple Node.js versions. The .drone.yml configuration builds images for Node.js 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24, and pushes them to Docker Hub with appropriate tags.

Required Drone Secrets:

• dockerhub_username - Your Docker Hub username
• dockerhub_password - Your Docker Hub password or access token

The build process automatically triggers on pushes to the main or master branches, as well as on git tags.

⁠Pulling from Docker Hub

docker pull boro/nodejs:node-18

You can pull specific Node.js versions:

docker pull boro/nodejs:node-14
docker pull boro/nodejs:node-16
docker pull boro/nodejs:node-18
docker pull boro/nodejs:node-20
docker pull boro/nodejs:node-22
docker pull boro/nodejs:node-24

⁠Running

To simply run the container:

docker run -d boro/nodejs:node-18

⁠Installing NPM Components

To install component for you node application to run simply include a packages.json file in the root of your application. The container will then install the components on start.

⁠Starting your application

At the moment the container looks for server.js in your web root and executes that.

⁠Available Configuration Parameters

The following flags are a list of all the currently supported options that can be changed by passing in the variables to docker with the -e flag.

• NODE_START : Set to a custom node start command (e.g. npm start or node dist/server.js). Defaults to node server.js in the /app directory.
• USE_YARN : Set to 1 to install packages via Yarn instead of NPM.
• GIT_REPO : URL to the repository containing your source code. If you are using a personal token, this is the https URL without https://, e.g github.com/project/ for ssh prepend with git@ e.g [email protected]⁠:project.git
• GIT_BRANCH : Select a specific branch (optional)
• GIT_EMAIL : Set your email for code pushing (required for git to work)
• GIT_NAME : Set your name for code pushing (required for git to work)
• GIT_PERSONAL_TOKEN : Personal access token for your git account (required for HTTPS git access)
• GIT_USERNAME : Git username for use with personal tokens. (required for HTTPS git access)
• RUN_SCRIPTS : Set to 1 to execute scripts

⁠Dynamically Pulling code from git

One of the nice features of this container is its ability to pull code from a git repository with a couple of environmental variables passed at run time.

REQUIRED: To create a personal access token on Github follow this guide⁠.

⁠Personal Access token

You can pass the container your personal access token from your git account using the GIT_PERSONAL_TOKEN flag. This token must be setup with the correct permissions in git in order to push and pull code.

Since the access token acts as a password with limited access, the git push/pull uses HTTPS to authenticate. You will need to specify your GIT_USERNAME and GIT_PERSONAL_TOKEN variables to push and pull. You'll need to also have the GIT_EMAIL, GIT_NAME and GIT_REPO common variables defined.

docker run -d -e 'GIT_EMAIL=email_address' -e 'GIT_NAME=full_name' -e 'GIT_USERNAME=git_username' -e 'GIT_REPO=github.com/project' -e 'GIT_PERSONAL_TOKEN=<long_token_string_here>' boro/nodejs:node-18

To pull a repository and specify a branch add the GIT_BRANCH environment variable:

docker run -d -e 'GIT_EMAIL=email_address' -e 'GIT_NAME=full_name' -e 'GIT_USERNAME=git_username' -e 'GIT_REPO=github.com/project' -e 'GIT_PERSONAL_TOKEN=<long_token_string_here>' -e 'GIT_BRANCH=stage' boro/nodejs:node-18

⁠Scripting

There is often an occasion where you need to run a script on code to do a transformation once code lands in the container. For this reason we have developed scripting support. By including a scripts folder in your git repository and passing the RUN_SCRIPTS=1 flag to your command line the container will execute your scripts. Please see the repo layout guidelines⁠ for more details on how to organise this.

⁠Special Git Features

Specify the GIT_EMAIL and GIT_NAME variables for this to work. They are used to set up git correctly and allow the container to push/pull.

⁠Using environment variables

To set the variables pass them in as environment variables on the docker command line.

Example:

docker run -d -e 'YOUR_VAR=VALUE' boro/nodejs:node-18

⁠Logging and Errors

⁠Logging

All logs should now print out in stdout/stderr and are available via the docker logs command:

docker logs <CONTAINER_NAME>

⁠WebRoot

You can set your webroot in the container to anything you want using the WEBROOT variable e.g -e "WEBROOT=/app/public". By default code is checked out into /app/ so if your git repository does not have code in the root you'll need to use this variable.